Three days in Raetihi
- Colin Grierson
- Mar 9, 2024
- 3 min read
Ranfurly Cottage. We arrived here Saturday midday, our home in Raetihi. It's a very nice place and our hosts, Alison & Ron, interact with us, which makes our stay more interesting and enjoyable . Ron is 83, fit and active and a bit of a tease, he has a very well equipped workshop which I used to try to fix the floppy mirror on the tricycle. Alison chats with Sau Keng. For dinner we went to the local Cossie club - they did a pretty decent meal. Rain was forecast Sunday (showers), Monday (heavy) and Tuesday (Showers again) We decided to stay until Tuesday morning - otherwise we are running out of days and this house has prior bookings anyway. The other guest booked in did not arrive, so we had the rooms to ourselves.
Sunday sleep in. Luxury... Eventually up, I get up to date with this blog, visit the Dinosaur museum (It is packed with stuff and very well done), and get on top of the Go club digital tournament organisation. A good day's work.
Sau Keng starts earlier than me and does a solid day's work preparing for a presentation of changes in the area she is responsible for. There have been showers on and off during the day, we might have got away with riding today - but we would have got wet several times. I'm glad we stayed, the rest is nice and getting up to date feels very good.
Raining again, Ron pops in and offers to drop us in town for dinner (and pick us up later) We gratefully accept the short ride - but nothing is open! Nothing except the Four Square which is open 7 days, 7am to 7pm. We buy our first 'TV' meals ever and a few things for making lunches for the next couple of days. The TV meals are only so so...
Sau Keng does not really like the curry she got. I like my macaroni cheese, but it is much too small ("I told you so" says Sau Keng).
A French/German couple arrive, they are very chatty and we get on well.
Monday. Farewell to the Schettlers. We have an invitation to stay with them if we come to Germany and they may stay in our house for a couple of days when they get to Auckland. Today we both have a full day of 'real' work. It is a good place with plenty of space, a big table to work at and cozy with the gas fire going. The WIFI is the only problem, not really usable, but our phone hot spots work well. Most of the day it has been raining, sometimes hard, we congratulate ourselves for choosing to be here today.
In the evening we welcome a Swiss couple , they are nice, but much quieter than the Schettlers. 5:30, rain has paused so we ride to find dinner. Still all three venues are closed - surely they should get together and agree a schedule so at least one is always open?
The dependable Four Square is our hero again. Tonight we have Hoki fillets, steam (in the bag) vegetables, our last packet of instant noodles and instant miso soup - it makes a pretty decent meal. The forecast for tomorrow is... showers all day :-(
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